Monterey Time Machine not working

I take it back; excluding the entire library folder works; I forgot that I had manually excluded the findmy... folders and files, and that failed to do the job. I'm sticking with that for now, and CCC for the Library folder.

Booting into safe mode works perfectly. Thanks!

Boot into the Recovery volume (boot with the Command + R keys held down), select Disk Utility and run First Aid on both the Data and HD volumes. If you get any error message rerun First Aid.

Then reboot normally and test.

Same Problem.

Working fine until upgraded to Monterey.TM then after 3 days it decided the disk was full. Despite reformatting etc still never completed.

However, reformatting the drive then starting in Safe Mode and doing a backup appears to have kicked it into life and so far it is still working, though early days.

(External SSD drive via USB and encrypted backup)

You write: "The reason your back failed was "2021-11-24 09:25:59.821010-0800 Backup failed (104: BACKUP_DELAYED_UNFINISHED_PROTECTED_FILES)"

That is not a reason why the backup failed; it is a notification of a failure. I see nothing in the logs that points a finger to the file you mentioned or any other file

I can say for certain that the reason my backups failed was not because of the directory you mentioned in an earlier post. I read it and tried excluding that. TM failed. I then excluded the entire Containers folder that contains it. Backup failed again.

Apple needs to provide a solution that has affected so many of its users, users who are not IT experts and who randomly and desperately seek out solutions that they assume work but without actually knowing why they do in some cases but do not work across the board. The problem is that a lot of misinformation or faulty diagnoses get propagated across this and other sites.

I tried safe booting and got the same failed outcomes. I tried removing encryption on the HDD and that failed too. I spent hours with two Apple diagnosticians, sent in logs, and was told there is a bug in the OS and they are hoping to redress it in a future update to Monterey.

I'm done experimenting. CarbonCopyCloner, in the meantime, is giving me workable backups, thank goodness.

I worked through this issue with a Senior engineer and in the end (After trying most things discussed in this thread) we could only get a backup by excluding the whole of the ~user directory but it fails when including the directory. The outcome so far was: "After reviewing the submission and the logs provided, Engineering can confirm that Apple has received reports of this behavior and is investigating. "

So I guess there will be a fix in a later update. For now I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner as a backup solution.

Try excluding your ~Library folder from your Time Machine backups. The problem seems to be there (no one seems to have located definitively where in that folder yet). You can continue to use Time Machine to back up everything else including the whole of your user directory (minus that folder). CCC will back up your Library folder without issues, and you'll be covered.

When Time Machine Backup stops does it display an information message to the effect "can't backup a .... " naming a specific file or folder? This was happening to me both with the automatically scheduled backups and the manual (Backup Now) options. The file or folder it referred to wasn't always the same, but all were in the Users/yourusername/Library/Containers/ folder. Some times it stopped on a Chrome sub-folder, sometimes on a Safari folder, sometimes on a Firefox folder and at the end repeatedly on a Siri folder/file. When I excluded the Siri file (“/Users/yourusername/Library/Containers/com.apple.siri.media-indexer/Data/mediatitlesfinalTable.tdb") backup worked regularly. After the Monterey upgrade to 12.1 the error/warning occured again, except when I clicked on "Ok" backup continued and completed. Subsuquent backups did not have this problem.

If you are getting a different message, copy it or take a screen shot and share it with the advisor you speak to next. Use the same case # so that it will be escilated to a higher level. The first level of support you speak with is usually just basic level support and directs calls/cases to a more technically skilled support level. If they are not aware of this problem ask to be transfered to a Senior Tech support person, or schedule a call back with a Senior Tech. That level will have the experience to understand the issue, access to reports of the issue and can message the OS Engineers with additional information (and get back additional information). If we don't participate in the solution to this problem, it will take longer to be resolved. The OS Engineers can only do so much testing, we are able to provide much more varied information from our different user environments.

I've participated in the problem solving of this problem, and a few others, that my wife thinks Apple should give me their latest top end MacBook Pro and top end iPad Pro. That's never going to happen, and I don't expect anything more than a thank you and the opportunity to help both Apple and those on this community discussion thread. I'm retired and I enjoy the opportunities to be back in the IT problem solving mode.

I'm just an end user, not an Apple employee nor an Apple consultant. I do have a half century of IT experience and this issue with the release of Monterey 12.0 and the partial fix with release 12.1 is something I've experienced numerous times.

I've been told the OS engineers are aware of the problem (since November) and are working on a resolution. Since my backups are working as designed and as I expect, I'm being patient for another update release.

I hope this helps/works for you. Happy New Year!

I was able to complete a backup if I unchecked (encrypt backup). MBP 16 inch 2019 model.

I’d tried every piece of advice on the forum. After upgrading to 12.1, the problem persisted - until I used a different cable to attach my Samsung T5 time machine disk. Now it seems to be OK.

I faced your problem on my M1 MacBook Pro, but never on my M1 iMac. A few days ago this happened because I connected my backup drive through a bus-powered hub, it works fine after removing it.

I have used disk utility to create a partition on an SSD in APFS [I called it M-TM partition] and then the Monterey TM shiows it in the list of available options, and everything went well. So sugguest to: reformat your old partition this way.

I have found that the safe mode back-up works as well (NAS and external drives). This is a common issue apparently and needs to be addressed by Apple ASAP. Time machine is a great feature when working properly.

I went through all sorts of attempts to get a backup to work using Monterrey and M1 (14 in.); a long time ago I noticed that I could back up (once) by keeping the backup to a minimum. I never went back to that strategy until today. Here's what happened so far.

1. I backed up excluding ~/Library and Applications and a large set of documents/pdfs that are backed up to a Box account anyway plus another very large set of music files. Worked. (astonishingly)
2. I removed Applications from the exclusions. Worked. astonishingly again.
3. I removed ~/Library from the exclusions and am waiting for the result. Will post back later in 2 hrs. (est.)

In any case, I would recommend this incremental approach rather than any other extreme measures. The culprit may be in the Library folder somewhere. Or it may be a matter of the quantity of files being backed up. Time will tell.

If the Library folder backs up I will try removing the music files and then the box-synced folders.